In message <199605230253.WAA00607@mail-e2b-service.gnn.com> Glenn Morton writes:> > Tools 2 Myr old > made either by H.habilis or H.erectus have been found in Pakistan (R.W. > Dennell, H. M. Rendell and E. Hailwood, "Late Pliocene Artefacts from > Northern Pakistan," Current Anthropology, 29:3, June 1988, p. 498.) Since > there must be some time for the population of such a large area, I will > make a predict[ion] that ultimately Homo erectus will be found much further > back than that time. The types of discovery currently being made supports > strongly my contention that mankind (even if he is not exactly like us > cranially) is very old. (See Ian Tattersall, _The Fossil Trail_, p. 243n)>

Congratulations, Glenn -- the data are going in your direction:

PEKING MAN GROWS MUCH OLDER IN NEW STUDY

"A group of Chinese fossils known collectively as Peking Man dates to at
least 400,000 years ago, considerably earlier than previous estimates, according
to preliminary analysis of sediment at the site where the finds first emerged in
1921.
"If the revised age holds up, it suggests that Homo erectus -- the species
to which Peking Man belongs -- lived in East Asia before modern humans did. The
former age estimate of 200,000 to 300,000 years for the fossils raised the
possibility that H. erectus and an early form of H. sapiens existed
simultaneously in that part of the world.
"Even given a markedly older Peking Man, however, current debates over the
nature of human evolution appear unlikely to vanish. For instance, Ian
Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in NYC sees no reason at
this point to revise his opinion that H. erectus evolved only in East Africa as
a dead-end species and that separate Homo species in Africa eventually led to
modern humans....
"Richard Teh-Lung Ku, a geochronologist at USC in Los Angeles, directed the
new study. It is slated to apear in the August Acta Anthropologica Sinica, a
scientific journal published in China."
-- Science News, v. 149, May 11, 1996 p. 292